almost ours

about three weeks ago, joseph and i went to the house to meet with the property inspector. we hadn't seen it since august, when we first made the offer. at that time, i was surprised by how much i still loved the place. it hadn't lost its lustre for me.

as we walked around the property, the current owner came outside to show us his garden and told us how we took care of it during the winter. he kept saying things like, "if you guys end up buying this house, then ..."

by that point, we were in escrow, but the idea of buying--of OWNING--a house still seemed very far away and a bit unreal to me.

over the past three weeks, we have reviewed and signed a million papers, contracts, etc. i wired the money--pretty much everything that i had been squirreling away and into my savings account for nearly two years--to escrow. it was an awful feeling. but when i left the bank, the teller congratulated me on my new house.

today joseph and i returned to the house on linwood for a final walk through. the couple who lives there now--a mexican american couple about my parents' age--had already moved out almost all of their belongings. the bare furniture was all that remained. the husband took joseph outside to look at some "manly things" (i preferred not to know), while the wife showed me where she was leaving spare keys, light bulbs, and appliance manuals.

in that moment, i was anxious and afraid about the responsibility of the house. the commitment of it all really terrified me. i worried that we wouldn't be able to keep up the house as beautifully as they had. i was sad that they had to leave such a lovely home.

we signed one last form, and when we left the wife hugged both me and joseph and her husband shook our hands. they wished us luck. in five days it'll all be in our hands.

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home and heart

joseph and i were in dallas a couple of weeks ago when my real estate agent called to tell me that the offer i had made on a house in riverside had been accepted.

we hadn't been house hunting since the summer. we saw many awful houses that had been foreclosed and several houses on the verge of foreclosure (short sales). these were the house in our price range, but most of them were in bad shape.

except for one. we saw a beautiful house in an established neighborhood in riverside. it was built in the 1940s, very small, but beautifully kept with hard wood floors, built in bookshelves, impeccable landscaping. it was, by leaps and bounds, the best property we had seen.

i made an offer.

four months later, after a lot of back and forth with the bank and the listing agent and a lot of waiting, i found myself in dallas with my future in-laws, receiving the news that the bank accepted my offer. everyone was talking about the engagement and our wedding in california, and now, on top of all of that is the house.

yesterday we met with the property inspector and walked through the house again. it was great because we remembered why we loved the house in the first place. of course now it feels more special knowing that this is likely to be our first house as a married couple.

these are huge life changes. kind of overwhelming, but also very exciting. :)

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